Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline reaches record levels.

Lets hope the helpline is reaching record levels because women are asking for help rather than men's violence against women is increasing.

The tel is 0800 027 1234, it is free, confidental and cannot be traced.

The helpline said more victims feel confident about coming forwardThe number of calls to a helpline for victims of domestic violence is at a record high.
More than 21,000 calls were made to the Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline (SDAH) last year, an increase of 3% on 2006.
It is believed the rise is because more victims feel confident enough to come forward and ask for help.
The callers were mostly women but a significant number were men and children. Some of the youngsters wanted to get help for their mothers.
The helpline said the problem affected people from all parts of Scotland regardless of age, background and social class.
The calls are not just about physical abuse, many were in relation to psychological or emotional abuse

The Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell is now calling for more to be done to tackle domestic abuse.
He said: "While we have made progress in changing attitudes and encouraging women to report domestic abuse, there is still a lot more work to do in tackling this problem.
"The helpline is an important partner for us in tackling domestic abuse and their help has transformed the lives of many women and their children.
He said it was important that people were encouraged to seek help and report incidents to the police so the true extent of the problem could be discovered and perpetrators properly punished.
Helpline number
Liz Kelly, head of training at the SDAH, said: "We have had calls that range from people looking for immediate help to get out of a relationship because of domestic abuse, women looking for refuge accommodation, women who need urgent medical attention or who want to report incidents of domestic abuse to the police.
"The calls are not just about physical abuse, many were in relation to psychological or emotional abuse, which was highlighted by the Scottish Government's awareness campaign."
The Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline number is 0800 027 1234 and lines are open 24 hours and calls are free, confidential and cannot be traced.

Chinese trafficked prostitutes in Stirling

The only way to stop tafficking of women for prostitution is to stop prostitution. Any man found to have had sex with these women should be charged wth rape. The men paying to have sex with these women were hardly going for conversation or because "my wife doesn't understand me".





by Tim Bugler from the Scotsman Newspaper
FOUR Chinese women trafficked into Scotland by gangs to work in the sex industry have been found during a series of raids by police.
The women, in their 20s, were found in two separate properties in Grangemouth and an up- market area of Stirling.Two Chinese men were arrested at the same time.A police source said yesterday: "This is an excellent result and once again illustrates the insidious extent of the sex trade in Scotland."This weekend is the start of Chinese New Year, and for these four girls, the Year of the Rat should be an awful lot happier than recent times that they have endured."Girls like these tend to come from very rural and very poor parts of China. They would have been forced to hand over many thousands of pounds to the snakeheads, after being promised jobs here as waitresses, dancers or nannies."They then have to endure dreadful conditions as they are trafficked through Central Asia, the Balkans and eastern Europe, before arriving in Britain without anything, apart from the hollow promise of a new life."Unfortunately, the girls who the police rescued are the tip of an iceberg, and there will always be many hundreds of others back in China more than happy to try their luck in Britain."

Domestic abuse rises when Euro game on

This is probably connected to alcohol and men's entitlement to believe their female partners can make them feel OK and when they can't cause their team got beat well she deserves it. It was my birthday that night so I chose to stay in with my partner as i knew it wouldn't be nice to go out. Another example of men you don't know controlling you.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7237366.stmDomestic violence soared on the night Scotland lost to Italy in the Euro 2008 championship qualifier, figures have suggested.Strathclyde Police revealed that between April and December last year there was an average of 92 domestic abuse incidents reported.However, on Saturday, 17 November, the figure went up to 126.SNP MSP for the Glasgow region, Sandra White, said the increase was largely fuelled by drink.The figures also showed that on the Saturday before the crunch football match, 89 domestic abuse incidents were reported and there were 90 on the Saturday after the qualifier.Almost two thirds - 64% - of the incidents on the day of the big game were alcohol-related.Ms White said: "This was a football match heralded and promoted as the biggest football feast of the century and one which the whole of Scotland looked forward to."Sadly, for so many, these figures clearly show that for them there was nothing to cheer about."She added: "With pubs showing alcohol sales during this period higher than Christmas and kick- off time at 5pm there is no doubt that the binge drinking culture of Scotland was evident."This cannot and should not be tolerated in any decent society and must be tackled."

Racism and violence against women

I have just read a very distressing article in the Sunday Times here

It tells of a story of a 15 year old girl with learning disabilities being prostituted by her parents and mother in law (she has a mother in law though she can't really because she is 15). The article then goes on to discuss "honour killings" and the threat of honour killings. But is it me or does it just read like a diatribe against muslims as opposed to the horrendous organised sexual abuse of a young disabled woman. The Sunday Times when writing about prostitution never links it to the harm of women or the abuse of women and is quite happy to portray prostituted women as "happy hookers" or to re-tell the story of a high class prostitute or brainy students from Oxford "working" through college here.

However when talking about muslims they take a feminist and child protection stance yet somehow fail to talk about the perpetrators as sex offenders and prefers to talk about them as muslims. There is something wrong here and the comments part of the article are promoting racism.

Check out Southhall Black Sisters here

1% of domestic abuse reports goes to conviction

Diversion and formal warnings are not prosecutions or convictions!!! A researcher once told me that more people have winnings on the lottery every week than people are convicted of domestic abuse offences.

Thousands of cases of domestic abuse in the North-east are going unpunished.Scottish Government figures have revealed more than 3,000 cases a year of domestic abuse have been reported to Grampian Police.But the only year with a record of how many convictions there were was 2005/06 - when only 39 people were punished by the courts for domestic abuse.According to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill there were 3,560 cases reported to Grampian Police in 2005/06, which fell to 3,137 in 2006/07.The number of cases had peaked in 2004/05 with 4,373.North-east Labour MSP Richard Baker, who got the information in a parliamentary question, claimed that more needed to be done to stop domestic abuse.He said: "It is wrong that thousands of cases of domestic abuse are going unpunished and women in particular may be going unprotected from violent partners."I would like the Scottish Government to look at how this can be tackled."A spokeswoman for Grampian Police said: "We take domestic abuse very seriously and encourage people to report it."The conviction rate is a matter for the Crown Office rather than the police, but it should be noted that in addition to prosecution there are other forms of disposal available such diversion, and formal warnings."

Public Trial - the rape of justice: Whose guilty?

Plans are moving ahead for the Public Trial - The rape of justice: Who's guilty? We invite you to participate on 16 February. Please help circulate the email below. Your ideas and any other offers of help (including fundraising) will be greatly appreciated . Some of our recent comments to the media can be viewed at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7116336.stm and on YouTube - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DFH3bnCUtI0 you’ll see a clip from News 24. Keep an eye on www.womenagainstrape.net for more news and a poster to print off.

Women Against Rape 30th anniversary Summons to a Public Trial The rape of justice: Who’s guilty? 16 February 2008 2-5 pm Doors open at 1.30

Three decades ago, when it was still legal for a man to rape his wife, Women Against Rape, just formed, announced a rape trial with a difference: women were putting the government and its criminal justice system on trial for condoning and even encouraging rape. Most people now support women’s right to say NO under any circumstance and at any point, and to get justice when that NO is ignored. Yet, the conviction rate for recorded rape is down to 5.7%. So once again we are putting the authorities on trial for persistently “letting rapists off the hook,” which denies women and girls justice and makes us all vulnerable. Those in charge of justice still often hold women responsible for rape and sexual assault. It used to be short skirts and hitch-hiking that were to blame. Now it’s having too much to drink or having more than one partner or, as always, trusting the wrong man. The truth is that just being a woman – or a girl – in the wrong place at the wrong time is often enough to condemn us to rape. But we have fought back. Increasingly women have reported rape and sexual assault, even when it was frightening, embarrassing and dangerous to do so, and even when the police didn’t want to know. We reported rape not only by strangers but by dates, husbands, partners, fathers, step-fathers, uncles, brothers, babysitters, employers, immigration officers, teachers, lecturers, carers, police, soldiers . . . And we have fought to defend our children even more than ourselves. For 30 years, with little or no funding, Women Against Rape has been backing women and spearheading their demands for justice, by: Speaking out against the authorities which don’t investigate, lose the evidence, misrepresent us, attack our character and conduct, accuse us of lying, put us on trial and even in prison. Invading courts and private clubs where some of the most sexist judges hang out. Pressing for changes in the law, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts, the compensation system, and demanding that police or prosecutors who won’t do their jobs against rapists must be sacked. Winning legislation which recognises rape in marriage as a crime, and sets at least some (though not enough) limits on raising women’s sexual history in court. Fighting for rape survivors not to be detained, left destitute, or have our children torn from us, and to be granted the right to asylum. Winning a private prosecution against a serial rapist after the CPS refused to prosecute – a test case that exposed the CPS. Forcing the police and CPS to arrest and prosecute the white attacker of a Black Muslim mother; he was found guilty – another test case that exposed police inaction. Winning compensation for many rape victims after they had been turned down. BUT MOST RAPISTS STILL GET AWAY WITH IT! What is the point of recommendations, complaints and appeals procedures, specialist police, prosecutors and judges, inspectorates, women in government, and more laws if those in charge of implementing them refuse over and over to do their job? WE WANT THOSE IN CHARGE OF JUSTICE TO BE HELD TO ACCOUNT! Have your say on 16 February 2008. Testify about your experience of dealing with sexual, domestic and other violence, what you did to try to get protection and justice and what response you got from each of the authorities. Male survivors of sexual violence are also welcome. We will have dark glasses, masks and screens for anyone who wants to disguise their identity.

Venue: Trinity United Reformed Church Buck St, Camden, London NW1 8NJ 1 min Camden Tube; Accessible entrance, accessible toilet nearby; Please book crèche in advance

GIVE EVIDENCE! BE THE JURY! FILL THE PUBLIC GALLERY! M AK E SURE OUR VOICE FOR JUSTICE PREVAILS! ALL WELCOME! SPREAD THE WORD! www.womenagainstrape.net war@womenagainstrape.net Tel. 020 7482 2496 voice & minicom

Swedish model for Prostitution coming to Britain?

Later this month the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker will travel to Sweden to examine the country's prostitution laws. The government is considering adopting the Swedish model, where it is a criminal offence to buy sex. This has shamed many men, and led to fewer women working on the streets, but concerns remain over trafficking and driving the trade underground

The white envelope that arrived at the family home would have been innocuous enough, were it not for the emblem in the top left corner. For the married father-of-two to whom it was addressed the words Polismyndigheten i Stockholms län - Stockholm County police - were the first clue that his visit to a prostitute had not been as discreet as he might have imagined.

Article continues

---

---

Unknown to him, police surveillance officers investigating a suspected pimping operation were watching from an unmarked car as he arrived in his Volvo at the apartment building in the suburb of Bromma on a summer's day in 2006. They filmed him going in at 5.47pm, and leaving at 6.10pm. Eight months later they wrote to him telling him he was suspected of buying sex. He denied it, claiming he and "Lia", the 25-year-old Estonian woman whose services he found on the internet, had done nothing but talk. But after being tried as part of a case against five men accused of procurement, he was found guilty and fined 15,000 kronor (£1,200).

The 52-year-old is one of more than 500 men convicted in Sweden under legislation introduced in 1999 criminalising the purchase or attempted purchase of sex, and decriminalising its sale, with the aim of reducing levels of prostitution and trafficking in women by cutting demand. The country views prostitution as a male violence against women and children, officially acknowledging it as a form of exploitation that is a barrier to gender equality. The Swedish term for a man who buys sex is torsk, meaning cod.

Many of those apprehended have families and well-paid jobs, authorities say. Four judges are among those convicted.

Although the options include a jail term of up to six months, all the men so far have received fines, which are based on earnings and whether the buyer has offended before. The largest penalty handed out was to a company director on a yearly salary of 1,440,000 kronor, who paid 70,000 kronor (£5,600). Three months later he was caught again. Supporters and critics agree street prostitution has been reduced. Agneta Borg, who has run Stockholm's social services project working with prostitutes for 11 years, estimates street prostitution is now 55% or 60% of what it was.

Trafficking

Government figures estimated there were around 2,500 native Swedes or permanent residents from abroad working as prostitutes in 1998, and only 1,500 in 2003. But the sale of sex off the streets, in brothels, strip clubs, massage parlours and hotel bars, remains largely unquantifiable, and it has soared online. It is there, according to police, that many trafficked women can be found.

The number of women trafficked to Sweden has risen, with those from Estonia, Russia, Poland and Lithuania most prominent. In 2003 it was estimated at 400-600; Kajsa Wahlberg, a detective inspector who is the country's national rapporteur on human trafficking, believes it could be around 1,000 today.

But trafficking has risen everywhere, she says, and the Swedish figure is nothing compared with its Scandinavian neighbours. Wahlberg estimates the figure in Norway and Denmark is around 6,000, and between 12,000 and 15,000 in Finland. All three countries have about half the population of Sweden.

Criminalising customers makes it harder for trafficking operations to operate, she says. "They have to be very discreet. They can only run two or three women at a time, and they have to keep moving around because neighbours complain to us." She rejects claims the law puts prostitutes at greater risk of violence by driving the sex industry underground.

"The biggest part of prostitution has always taken place indoors and underground. We don't get reports saying women in prostitution are being more violated than before. There are always risks of violence in prostitution." Most of the prosecuted men are caught during surveillance on suspected brothels because their evidence can be used to convict the pimps and traffickers.

In the last two years 77 trafficked women have been taken out of sex work in the Stockholm area after police operations. In many cases the man's wife or partner gets to the police-embossed envelope before he does and opens it to find a letter telling the recipient he is wanted for questioning, or is being fined. "We get telephone calls from men and women telling us we're destroying their marriage," says Ann Martin of the interrogation team in Stockholm. "The wives are terrified, frustrated and angry. They ask what this is about. We tell them to talk to their husbands."

On Malmskillnadgatan, the single street that forms Stockholm's traditional red light district, the complaint is that the law has made conditions tough.

Wahlberg says one might have seen around 40 prostitutes there 10 years ago: now only a few congregate. During one evening just 12 bundle themselves up against the cold to ply their trade, apparently with limited success.

One is politely rebuffed by a grey-haired man who passes through innocently wearing a festive red and white bobble hat. "He doesn't want to be my Santa Claus!" she says. Having settled in Sweden after coming from Venezuela in the early 90s and worked as a cleaner and a waitress she turned to prostitution two years ago. She is now 31. "It's difficult to find a job here and I need the money. There's a lot of competition now, and the customers are afraid," she said.

"My friend who worked here before the law changed said you could make 20,000 kronor in a night; now it is much lower than that. Everyone has goals. I would like to buy my own house in Sweden and get a normal job, some education, a profession."

An older woman fumbling for a lighter says she is fed up with everyone assuming her work is "tragic and miserable. It's like anything: some days it's OK and some days it stinks."

Sven-Axel Månsson, of the University of Malmo, says that for occasional sex buyers who get caught and prosecuted the shame can put them off, but for the habitual user it is less likely to act as a deterrent. Such men use internet forums to complain bitterly about Sweden's law. Some travel to Copenhagen, to avoid the risks of using prostitutes in their home country, Månsson says.

In Malmskillnadgatan the same handful of vehicles circle the block endlessly. Other men approach the shivering women on foot: some eye the scene from a distance. Marked police cars drive through slowly a couple of times, without stopping.

By 1.30am the street is almost still. Two men approach in a car and draw to a halt. One gets out: his eyes are bloodshot, his mouth droops and he is missing some bottom teeth. He speaks in Swedish and then English: "I am looking to meet some nice girls."

Once he realises he is not talking to a prostitute, he insists his motives are innocent. But he goes on: "If I have a woman at home she has to be very strong to feed me, because I love sex. She will be tired from working and she will not be able to feed me."